Everyone agrees with us on climate change—especially when we’re wrong

By just about every measure, the vast majority of scientists in general—and climate scientists in particular—have been convinced by the evidence that human activities are altering the climate. However, in several countries, a significant portion of the public has concluded that this consensus doesn't exist. That has prompted a variety of studies aimed at understanding the large disconnect between scientists and the public, with results pointing the finger at everything from the economy to the weather. Other studies have noted societal influences on acceptance, including ideology and cultural identity.

Those studies have generally focused on the US population, but the public acceptance of climate change is fairly similar in Australia. There, a new study has looked at how societal tendencies can play a role in maintaining mistaken beliefs. The authors of the study have found evidence that two well-known behaviors—the "false consensus" and "pluralistic ignorance"—are helping to shape public opinion in Australia.

False consensus is the tendency of people to think that everyone else shares their opinions. This can arise from the fact that we tend to socialize with people who share our opinions, but the authors note that the effect is even stronger "when we hold opinions or beliefs that are unpopular, unpalatable, or that we are uncertain about." In other words, our social habits tend to reinforce the belief that we're part of a majority, and we have a tendency to cling to the sense that we're not alone in our beliefs.

Pluralistic ignorance is similar, but it's not focused on our own beliefs. Instead, sometimes the majority of people come to believe that most people think a certain way, even though the majority opinion actually resides elsewhere.

As it turns out, the authors found evidence of both these effects. They performed two identical surveys of over 5,000 Australians, done a year apart; about 1,350 people took the survey both times, which let the researchers track how opinions evolve. Participants were asked to describe their own opinion on climate change, with categories including "don't know," "not happening," "a natural occurrence," and "human-induced." After voicing their own opinion, people were asked to estimate what percentage of the population would fall into each of these categories.

In aggregate, over 90 percent of those surveyed accepted that climate change was occurring (a rate much higher than we see in the US), with just over half accepting that humans were driving the change. Only about five percent felt it wasn't happening, and even fewer said they didn't know. The numbers changed only slightly between the two polls.

The false consensus effect became obvious when the researchers looked at what these people thought that everyone else believed. Here, the false consensus effect was obvious: every single group believed that their opinion represented the plurality view of the population. This was most dramatic among those who don't think that the climate is changing; even though they represent far less than 10 percent of the population, they believed that over 40 percent of Australians shared their views. Those who profess ignorance also believed they had lots of company, estimating that their view was shared by a quarter of the populace.

Among those who took the survey twice, the effect became even more pronounced. In the year between the surveys, they respondents went from estimating that 30 percent of the population agreed with them to thinking that 45 percent did. And, in general, this group was the least likely to change its opinion between the two surveys.

But there was also evidence of pluralistic ignorance. Every single group grossly overestimated the number of people who were unsure about climate change or convinced it wasn't occurring. Even those who were convinced that humans were changing the climate put 20 percent of Australians into each of these two groups.

In the end, the false consensus effect is swamped by this pluralistic ignorance. Even though everybody tends to think their own position is the plurality, those who accept climate change is real still underestimate how many people share their views. Meanwhile, everyone overestimates the self-labelled "skeptic" population.

The authors suggest that this could, in part, be a result of the media's tendency to always offer two opposing opinions, even on issues where one is a fringe belief. They also point out that it would be good to perform a similar study in other nations where the dynamics of public belief are different.

274 Reader Comments

The whole point of the article is about self-bias and the claim that it is chiefly caused by a laziness toward looking outside the reinforcing voices of our peer groups.

AGW is not an opinion or a belief. However, as the article points out, many of us treat it as one. That is, we fail to take in all of the science to form our opinion. Many of us are overwhelmed by all of the encompassing data and many of us are too lazy to spend the time to become informed. But only if you've formed an opinion based on all of the data can you claim AGW is not a belief.

The overall tone of these comments feel like a reinforcement of the claims the article is making. If you feel that one or two data points make a defining argument about the science behind global warming then you're probably among the fringe the article refers to and, whether your "sign" says yes or no to global warming, you might as well be standing next to the guys in the photo.

This unclear message is exacerbated due to right wing newspapers spreading one viewpoint about the existence of man-made climate change (negative) and we have left wing newspapers spreading another viewpoint about the existence of man-made climate change (positive).

One technique my dad and I took was to assess both authors credibility based on citations using Google Scholar to try to cut through the contrary arguments but did not progress much from there.

I think the problem is that, at this point, any "end of the world" talk sounds like the little boy who called Mayan calendar. It doesn't matter if it comes from some asshole on the street or the great scientific minds of today. If you sound like a doomsayer people aren't going to take you seriously.

When the media insists on presenting a 50:50 balance of of opinion on an issue where the public opinion is closer to 90:10, then it is no wonder that public perceptions are skewed.

More to the point: ABC News is supposed to be a NEWS organization, charged with INFORMING the public. When reporting on SCIENCE they should report the findings of SCIENTISTS.

Science is not about public opinion. It is not about controversy. It is about data and theories that explain that data. And to some extent, it is about the practical outcomes that can be enlightened by science.

Global warming may be real and may be caused largely by humans, but that doesn't mean we can stop it. It's been happening since humans began cutting down trees, burning them, raising livestock, and farming. Even if everyone in the United States were to drop dead, it would continue. Deforestation is still happening and more and more people are driving each year. Other greenhouse gases, like methane, are much more potent than CO2. Methane is emitted from livestock and landfills. We keep having these debates about whether it's real and whether it's caused by humans, but we haven't had any debates about exactly how much the laws we pass will change it. The EU spent $287 billion on cap and trade regulations up to 2011 with no effect on the climate or even emissions. We keep skipping steps in the debate on climate change.

Scientists say humans are responsible for a majority of global warming, but how much exactly? They won't say. Atmospheric levels of CO2 increased from 270 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 360 ppm in 2000 (a 33% increase). Did the temperature increase 33%? No -- more like 4%! In other words, the legislation lawmakers keep coming up with has no chance of even faintly impacting global warming, yet the economic impact of the laws may very well be catastrophic. Ask any climate scientist you like what they think about that.

The topic of global warming has several built in issues, not the least of which is the name. While "climate change" is an accurate description of the problem, "global warming" isn't totally correct. Not all places are warming. AFAICT, the biggest casualty is climate stability and how fast weather shifts from one extreme to the other. The "is it real" problem is further compounded by the industries whose products are perceived as responsible (oil and coal), using statements that deliberately muddy the waters and distort the issues. There's a difference between pointing out that mans activities are a major factor in causing global warming and saying that man is the only cause of it. Those who profit from carbon based fuels add that little twist in an attempt to cause doubt about if it's actually happening at all or to place the cause elsewhere. This has been made worse by those who turned CO² emissions into a way to make money, aka carbon credits. All this has done is convince people that the whole thing is a scam that profits big money.

Everything I see here says that climate change is real. I won't pretend to know how it's affecting all the different parts of the earth, but I can see quite well what is changing here. Here, the overall trend is warmer, and drier. It's quite visible with lake levels dropping and wells going dry. It's obvious when you're getting rain in the winter instead of snow, or seeing open water on the big lakes all winter, water that used to freeze every winter. It's hard not to notice the change when you see bare ground in January in an area that used to get 200 inches of snow in the average winter, or that I can work the soil a month earlier than normal every year now.

The point was also made earlier that people don't want to admit it's real, even if they believe that it is. Admitting that climate change is real and that man, especially those in the "developed nations" is largely responsible means that we share in the blame. It means that we have to adopt less consuming, less wasteful, more in line with what the planet can support, and much less focused on our perceived standard of living and our "more is better" attitude. Myself, I think it's already too late to prevent major environmental changes from happening, even if our CO² emissions dropped to zero right now. That said, what we do now will determine how habitable this planet will be for our grand children.

I use to have a similar reason to not believe in AGW right after high school. My reasoning basically was "it's so arrogant of us to believe that we can make such a huge difference to the climate". 3 basic logical reasoning college credits later, I realized it was nothing but n argument from personal incredulity. That is essentially the fundamental argument that people who claim humans cannot change the climate have.

Furthermore, there is tons if evidence like the one you point to that shows we can dramatically change our local environment. Stuff like the Ozone Hole, the huge brown cloud over Asia, show we can also affect the global environment significantly. There is no reason, anymore, to disbelieve that our emissions can indeed affect the global climate.

I'm actually surprised that 90% of Australians believe the climate is changing.

I think the reason I wouldn't have put the figure that high is that the media in Australia seems to spend just as long interviewing climate skeptics as covering climate change.

11 out of the 12 capital daily newspapers are owned by either News Corp or Fairfax. Both also have their hands in TV and radio. I think there's an answer there!

What I'd give for a broader spread of media in Aus. An Independent and Guardian would be nice to have rather than the Daily Mail level nonsense we have to put up with.

Quote:

When the media insists on presenting a 50:50 balance of of opinion on an issue where the public opinion is closer to 90:10, then it is no wonder that public perceptions are skewed.

Well, I'd rather a media that presented a balanced view, discussing both sides. Of course, that's not quite how it works here, and presumably elsewhere, with those who subscribe to the theories (theory in the scientific sense rather than the other) presented as unwashed fringe crazies, and the antis being shown as, well, not that.

Scientists say humans are responsible for a majority of global warming, but how much exactly? They won't say. Atmospheric levels of CO2 increased from 270 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 360 ppm in 2000 (a 33% increase). Did the temperature increase 33%? No -- more like 4%! In other words, the legislation lawmakers keep coming up with has no chance of even faintly impacting global warming, yet the economic impact of the laws may very well be catastrophic. Ask any climate scientist you like what they think about that.

Quoting percentages shows your ignorance of the physics behind it, but I'll ignore that and focus on the last bit.

Any legislation to help slow down global warming could potentially have severe economic consequences. This is why we need a lot of very strong debate and analysis on the methods we do use to slow it down. We need to work together (bipartisanship) to find a way to reduce emissions AND keep our quality of life high.

This has actually been tackled by various people now, many of whom advocate carbon pricing mechanisms that slowly ramp up the cost of emitting over many years, while simultaneously funding research and development of feasible lower-cost alternatives to the emissions-heavy energy/transportation systems we currently use.

So while what we need is a government that takes some of this expert advice and works out the legislation to help reduce emissions and keep economic growth sufficient for quality of life issues, what we HAVE is a bunch on one side denying the existence of the threat in the first place.

Clearly without some sanity, we won't have a solution (economically catastrophic or not) and we'll be leading our civilisation to a very clear catastrophe further down the track.

I think in some major way, there is a failure of scientists to properly dissect the issue and explain what it is about, leaving facts and technical information at the gate, because it bores general populations to tears.

So this is my engineers perspective; I think that there's a problem because a lot of assumptions are being made, and the system we are trying to study is far more complex than anyone can comprehend. As far as control systems are concerned, the climate is a gargantuan system, does anyone even know how many degrees of freedom there is, or what the feedback loops are? I think the current climate models are not truly representative, given very loose tolerances and are not answering reliably, the questions that we should be asking.

My next problem is, warming is happening, so what! What is the evidence that this will be a catastrophe? While I haven't been looking for any answers (i've got more important things to worry about), the debates i see, always rest on the notion that climate change is bad (there's concrete history that cooling is bad, but history unfortunately is contradictory to the notion that warming is bad). This makes me think that the debate is no longer one of science, but a philosophical one.

If you want to point to one article, written by a journalist with no scientific background, claiming that the consensus of the vast majority of climate scientists, and vast majorities of science academies is wrong, the least you can do is find one which can do basic math. Quick, what is 2012-1997? (hint, not 16).

My next problem is, warming is happening, so what! What is the evidence that this will be a catastrophe? While I haven't been looking for any answers (i've got more important things to worry about), the debates i see, always rest on the notion that climate change is bad (there's concrete history that cooling is bad, but history unfortunately is contradictory to the notion that warming is bad). This makes me think that the debate is no longer one of science, but a philosophical one.

A compelling quote I saw from a recent article on ice ages in New Scientist

"It took just a small increase in sunshine and a gradual, 70-ppm rise in CO2 to melt the great ice sheets that once covered Eurasia and America. Since the dawn of the industrial age levels have risen by 130 ppm and counting."

Scientists say humans are responsible for a majority of global warming, but how much exactly? They won't say. Atmospheric levels of CO2 increased from 270 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 360 ppm in 2000 (a 33% increase). Did the temperature increase 33%? No -- more like 4%! In other words, the legislation lawmakers keep coming up with has no chance of even faintly impacting global warming, yet the economic impact of the laws may very well be catastrophic. Ask any climate scientist you like what they think about that.

Quoting percentages shows your ignorance of the physics behind it, but I'll ignore that and focus on the last bit.

Any legislation to help slow down global warming could potentially have severe economic consequences. This is why we need a lot of very strong debate and analysis on the methods we do use to slow it down. We need to work together (bipartisanship) to find a way to reduce emissions AND keep our quality of life high.

This has actually been tackled by various people now, many of whom advocate carbon pricing mechanisms that slowly ramp up the cost of emitting over many years, while simultaneously funding research and development of feasible lower-cost alternatives to the emissions-heavy energy/transportation systems we currently use.

So while what we need is a government that takes some of this expert advice and works out the legislation to help reduce emissions and keep economic growth sufficient for quality of life issues, what we HAVE is a bunch on one side denying the existence of the threat in the first place.

Clearly without some sanity, we won't have a solution (economically catastrophic or not) and we'll be leading our civilisation to a very clear catastrophe further down the track.

Like I said, there are several greenhouse gases -- not just CO2. And that's the problem. You seem to think there is just one. (So I guess you must not be a climate scientist, either.) All the laws I've seen only deal with CO2 emissions which tells me we need to have a public debate about the science of global warming. Reporters just refuse to talk about it. Hence the public ignores landfills, deforestation, grazing, etc. There's a demand among environmentalists that we do "something" and I for one would like there to be an open debate about what that is. I don't want a debate among lawmakers or among scientists, but in the media itself about the science. Skeptics on the issue feel like they're not being told the whole story. Why? Because they aren't. That's the scientists fault and the media's fault. It's not the skeptic's fault.

I think in some major way, there is a failure of scientists to properly dissect the issue and explain what it is about, leaving facts and technical information at the gate, because it bores general populations to tears.

So this is my engineers perspective; I think that there's a problem because a lot of assumptions are being made, and the system we are trying to study is far more complex than anyone can comprehend. As far as control systems are concerned, the climate is a gargantuan system, does anyone even know how many degrees of freedom there is, or what the feedback loops are? I think the current climate models are not truly representative, given very loose tolerances and are not answering reliably, the questions that we should be asking.

My next problem is, warming is happening, so what! What is the evidence that this will be a catastrophe? While I haven't been looking for any answers (i've got more important things to worry about), the debates i see, always rest on the notion that climate change is bad (there's concrete history that cooling is bad, but history unfortunately is contradictory to the notion that warming is bad). This makes me think that the debate is no longer one of science, but a philosophical one.

You should try and familiarize yourself with the science behind all this. A layman's summary can be found in the IPCC reports, the most recent one being the 2007 report. It exhaustively reviews the scientific literature and understanding (especially WG I: The Scientific Basis) to form the basis of its descriptions and projections. It discusses what we know with good certainty, what we don't know very well, what's most likely to happen based on what we know, and how much it will cost depending on what we do. In the intervening five years, it has not proven to be alarmist. Rather, it seems to be more conservative if anything. The next report is due out in a couple of years and will feature much more up-to-date research across the board.

"about 6hours ago New Poster l2uso Smack-Fu Master, in training blathered...Climate change is a fact, but to think that mankind is to blame is a superb example of scientific's (let's be honest to ourselves, economical/political) classical stupidity. Climate is a very punctual cycle and we are walking the hot time of that cycle... And if you think otherwise, and I respect that, lowering pollution right now will help no one in our current lifetime but in a time far beyond, equally to the 500 years or so we are heavily polluting earth, or more, who knows..."

Amusing. There is a point here that should not be missed: the OP seems to be suggesting that the delusional anti-GW response is an emotional reaction to a leadership that lacks a good plan for dealing with this crisis.

Doesn't this predicament look depressing? Now if we had a feasible plan for lower energy prices while eliminating emissions, it might help address this troubling communication problem by generally lowering fear, despair, and desperation. If successful, the economy could thrive on increasing energy use (our most valuable commodity).

My next problem is, warming is happening, so what! What is the evidence that this will be a catastrophe? While I haven't been looking for any answers (i've got more important things to worry about), the debates i see, always rest on the notion that climate change is bad (there's concrete history that cooling is bad, but history unfortunately is contradictory to the notion that warming is bad). This makes me think that the debate is no longer one of science, but a philosophical one.

Oh come on. Again, I'm amazed. People don't know what warming will do?We're already seeing it now, and we're going to see more of it: higher sea levels, more flooding, more frequent storms, more severe storms, more drought.

Clearly without some sanity, we won't have a solution (economically catastrophic or not) and we'll be leading our civilisation to a very clear catastrophe further down the track.

Like I said, there are several greenhouse gases -- not just CO2. And that's the problem. You seem to think there is just one. (So I guess you must not be a climate scientist, either.) All the laws I've seen only deal with CO2 emissions which tells me we need to have a public debate about the science of global warming. Reporters just refuse to talk about it. Hence the public ignores landfills, deforestation, grazing, etc. There's a demand among environmentalists that we do "something" and I for one would like there to be an open debate about what that is. I don't want a debate among lawmakers or among scientists, but in the media itself about the science. Skeptics on the issue feel like they're not being told the whole story. Why? Because they aren't. That's the scientists fault and the media's fault. It's not the skeptic's fault.

There are several, but CO2 is by far the most important, and the second most important (methane), while more potent than CO2, ends up as CO2 after a (relatively) short period of time. And is in any case usually quoted in terms of "effective CO2" emissions in legislative frameworks.

Deforestation IS considered in most frameworks of CO2 emissions (even if it's difficult) because it affects the ability of vegetation to remove CO2 from the atmosphere - so it is a virtual source of emissions.

A true skeptic asks questions of science, in fact a true skeptic is usually the scientist themselves.

Denialists (which is the problem group) ignore the evidence and argue from a basis of wilful ignorance due to ideological reasons.

The "Do something" is pretty simple, reduce our net emissions of CO2. Whether that be by stopping deforestation, reducing methane emissions from gas fields / cows, or reduction of the direct emission of CO2 from power stations etc.

The real problem, is how do we do that in a way that minimizes other costs (i.e. reduction in quality of life).

In the long-term, many have forecast that the economic argument has already been decided in favour of action (even drastic action), because in the long-term, the economic costs imposed by climate change are immense.

The topic of global warming has several built in issues, not the least of which is the name. While "climate change" is an accurate description of the problem, "global warming" isn't totally correct. Not all places are warming. AFAICT, the biggest casualty is climate stability and how fast weather shifts from one extreme to the other. The "is it real" problem is further compounded by the industries whose products are perceived as responsible (oil and coal), using statements that deliberately muddy the waters and distort the issues. There's a difference between pointing out that mans activities are a major factor in causing global warming and saying that man is the only cause of it. Those who profit from carbon based fuels add that little twist in an attempt to cause doubt about if it's actually happening at all or to place the cause elsewhere. This has been made worse by those who turned CO² emissions into a way to make money, aka carbon credits. All this has done is convince people that the whole thing is a scam that profits big money.

Everything I see here says that climate change is real. I won't pretend to know how it's affecting all the different parts of the earth, but I can see quite well what is changing here. Here, the overall trend is warmer, and drier. It's quite visible with lake levels dropping and wells going dry. It's obvious when you're getting rain in the winter instead of snow, or seeing open water on the big lakes all winter, water that used to freeze every winter. It's hard not to notice the change when you see bare ground in January in an area that used to get 200 inches of snow in the average winter, or that I can work the soil a month earlier than normal every year now.

The point was also made earlier that people don't want to admit it's real, even if they believe that it is. Admitting that climate change is real and that man, especially those in the "developed nations" is largely responsible means that we share in the blame. It means that we have to adopt less consuming, less wasteful, more in line with what the planet can support, and much less focused on our perceived standard of living and our "more is better" attitude. Myself, I think it's already too late to prevent major environmental changes from happening, even if our CO² emissions dropped to zero right now. That said, what we do now will determine how habitable this planet will be for our grand children.

Unfortunately, this is just confirmation bias. You have no actual way to attribute what you observed with local weather to climate change. If what you said was a valid argument, then someone's post of how it has been normal weather in their region for the past 10 years would be a valid counter-argument to climate change. Local weather is not stable, even over several years. Look at the unusual wet period followed by the unusual dry period that led to the dust bowl. I know you're trying to help, but don't point to events like a lake in your area not freezing all of the way as proof of climate change. It's counter-productive.

I'm not entirely convinced about the causes of Global Warming. Though I would not deny, even for a moment, that human activity has had any effect on the atmosphere; we have Acid Rain and Smog afterall.

I do wonder how much human activity plays a part and how much would have occured anyway, even if humans didn't exist.

This is not me being stupid, this is me questioning on the basis of what I can understand and sometimes observe for myself.

It seems sensible to me that reducing the amount of combustion products we throw into the air each year is a good thing. Whether it has a discernable effect on global temperature or not, making the air harmful for anything on the planet that breathes it doesn't seem too smart.

Scientists say humans are responsible for a majority of global warming, but how much exactly? They won't say. Atmospheric levels of CO2 increased from 270 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 360 ppm in 2000 (a 33% increase). Did the temperature increase 33%? No -- more like 4%! In other words, the legislation lawmakers keep coming up with has no chance of even faintly impacting global warming, yet the economic impact of the laws may very well be catastrophic. Ask any climate scientist you like what they think about that."

Not surprising then that there are a lot of people incentivised to keep it flowing. Whether you are a coal miner or an oil sheikh, your energy has made the world what it is and continuity keeps you and your family secure. Even if you believe in global warming, what would it mean for one miner to stop mining or one oil well to turn off the tap? And if you consume oil, what are you going to do? Give up your job so you don't commute in a car, not heat your house? Or tell your neighbor? Ruin the economy? It is so much easier to be the lobster comfortably going with the gentle warming, not believing the worst. Because anyway, does the worst seem so much worse than what the alternatives feel like?

I think we can get 99% belief and still go nowhere by just scolding people driving old cars or conserving a bit. I mean, yes conserving buys a bit more time. But 80% of the world needs more energy and have none to conserve, not really, and we have to figure out how their life will not stay miserable too.

Private industry is not going to invest in finding this. There is a vanishingly small chance that any one approach is the right one, most of what is happening is just tinkering. The existing energy businesses have no financial incentives - people are going to pay for energy and we can burn dead algae and trees until all current company execs are themselves decaying into CO2, so even if we assume they play their role as good citizens and research it, it will be peanuts.

Heck, they don't even invest in new grids which are a slam dunk good idea, mostly because they offer no obvious payoff to incumbents.

And the governments are not doing much. Japan you would think could do great stuff, but 20 years of doldrums and a tsunami seem to have let them in retreat. China has coal and gas. India has coal. USA is getting out of the business of government. Besides, no government does engineering well, except or military stuff, which is why our nuclear is all screwed up anyway.

Maybe we should have a really big X prize. A whole set of them in stages, big enough to motivate major resources. 10's of millions for solving known problems which need to be solve. A few $100M for pilot scale. Billions if you can make it financially competitive. Real money to match the scale of the problem and the need. Not fiddling chump change like you can get for developing space tourism.

Anyone else got some bright ideas? Sitting around measuring and discussing the depth of yokel stupidity is not going to get us anywhere...

Clearly without some sanity, we won't have a solution (economically catastrophic or not) and we'll be leading our civilisation to a very clear catastrophe further down the track.

...

The real problem, is how do we do that in a way that minimizes other costs (i.e. reduction in quality of life).

In the long-term, many have forecast that the economic argument has already been decided in favour of action (even drastic action), because in the long-term, the economic costs imposed by climate change are immense.

The economic argument hasn't been decided. In fact, that's the main point of contention with many people that agree there is climate change, but refuse to make drastic changes to our energy source because there is no good alternative. While wind and solar help, their immense installation costs make shutting down coal/nat gas in the short term detrimental to society.

Additionally, we still have the massive problem of transportation powered by oil. People won't be giving up cars/flights soon. Sure, you can raise the price of gas to $20 a gallon to make complete bio-fuels competitive, but at a major detriment to society. Any mid to long-range commuters would have to give up their jobs immediately, costs of air travel would make it nearly useless to the middle class, mining and farming costs of operation would jump and shipping costs would increase 5-fold, impacting commodity prices, food prices, etc.

If somehow everyone was okay with throwing the country into a massive recession and possibly depression over something that could happen down the road, it would hardly make any difference unless China and India are okay with giving up their industrial revolutions. The average US consumer would survive the depression caused by the massive cost impact of rapidly eliminating CO2 emissions. Citizens in developing nations can not and would have to give up development and return to a life of poverty.

The male, Christian President of Australia (<snip>Julia Gillard) made the mistake of being caught on camera during the 2010 election campaign saying words to the effect "There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead." The Coalition have run with that to great political effect, with much of the residual negative fallout from the carbon tax being due to her having lied in a sufficiently simplistic way to make it clear to the common voter. There had been a significant swing to the Coalition due to fears over the impact of the carbon tax, but they have mainly dissipated as the sky truly has not fallen in.

I'm still puzzled why President-Cardinal-Elect Gillard & the Christian Labor First Party didn't point out that he never implemented a carbon tax --- unlike funding of shadow Dictator-in-Waiting Friar Abbot's "'Direct' Action" plan.

Both sides have clear agenda's, to convince the other they arewrong. Neither side will win, nobody will lose either. We'lljust continue to find ways to suck the souls out of people anddeposit it into a barrel to pay for more research and keep peopleworking for point and counterpoint initiatives.

I frankly don't care if I kill the planet. I won't be here to see its end.Mayan calendar ends in a few weeks. Already brewing a batch of Kool-Aid and getting my Nike's on. Gonna go see Xenu

I don't think you understand what viable means. 0.2% of the earth is 394k miles. Assuming you find two locations that never get clouds exactly on opposite sides of the earth from each other so power can be maintained 24/7, that's 792k miles of solar panels. That's 20% of all of the square mileage of the United States. If every square foot of Texas, California, Montana, and New Mexico were covered with solar panels, it still wouldn't be enough.

Let me put it another way, the Ivanpah Solar Power facility cost $2.2 billion and has a planned capacity of 392 megawatts. So to build enough to sustain 30TW, which means 60TW capacity total, that would cost 336 trillion US dollars. That's about the same as the cumulative GDP from 2006 to 2011(inclusive) for the ENTIRE world.

Those numbers were based on 15% efficiency / 2, almost double that is probably achievable in the near future, if they are placed in sunny areas. The price is also coming down, much faster than inflation and GDP growth. Then there's economies of scale to consider: building 100 power plants is much cheaper than 100 times the cost of one.

However, I don't think we'll ever get 100% of our energy from solar whether it's feasible or not. In fact, I don't think we'll ever use any single energy source for over 80% of our needs - it's simply too fragile a setup. Instead a plan could be something like a quarter each from solar and nuclear fission, one from other non-polluting renewables, and one from fossil and bio fuels. (Until we can manage safe and cheap fusion, if ever.)

There's also energy efficiency to consider. Insulation, heat pumps and using more cogeneration could cut a significant percentage of the world's energy requirements.

What I don't get how can AGW evangelist say that the situation is terrible and catastrophic climate change is imminent, and at same time so strongly oppose geo-engineering, given that it's the only solution that is based in actual science (given that IPCC report claims, that reducing global emissions to zero a this moment will not reverse nor even stop GW within few hundred years).

And of course expecting emission reduction is wishful thinking. Developing countries will not agree to increase poverty levels just to reduce CO2 output.

To investigate the "Murdoch media is correlated with AGW-denying"-hypothesis", I tried to look up AGW-polls from more countries, specifically western countries (to keep cultural influence low) with low Murdoch-influence.

But I couldn't find anything. All I can find are useless biased online fansite polls and stupid blogposts where non-scientists give random unsupported opinions that look like they were written by chatbots.

I think in some major way, there is a failure of scientists to properly dissect the issue and explain what it is about, leaving facts and technical information at the gate, because it bores general populations to tears.

oh yeah, that's the final step that got missed off the list: "why didn't the scientists warn us earlier? we should go and burn down the observatory, so this never happens again."

Yes, I remember when it was "There is no warming."Then "There's warming, but not a significant amount."Then "Ok, significant but not man-made."

Back in times, people who later got involved in IPCC actually advocated Anthropogenic Global Cooling that would trigger an Ice Age.

"it is projected that man's potential to pollute will increase 6 to 8-fold in the next 50 years. If this increased rate of injection... should raise the present background opacity by a factor of 4, our calculations suggest a decrease in global temperature by as much as 3.5 °C. Such a large decrease in the average temperature of Earth, sustained over a period of few years, is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age."

That's from "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate" by Prof. Stephen H. Schneider, who later became a prominent figure in IPCC.

visbis444 wrote:

Now we seem to starting the transition period to "Ok it's significant and man-made, but we shouldn't bother trying to stop it anyway."

Thing is, that now the AGW evangelists are the ones refusing to do anything about it. They dream of reducing emissions. Which is not based in any way in real world. In the real world developing countries will not give up their development. In real life people will not stop eating beef. In real life there are no electric commercial airplanes. In real life alternative energy sources are expensive and still only a very small percentage.

Meanwhile, there is a solution. It's geo-engineering. But AGW evangelist strongly oppose that. Because it's based in science, not doomsday cult.

I'm actually surprised that 90% of Australians believe the climate is changing.

I think the reason I wouldn't have put the figure that high is that the media in Australia seems to spend just as long interviewing climate skeptics as covering climate change.

A couple of years ago, I actually complained to the ABC about their repeated interviews with three prominent (and unqualified) climate skeptics, and their response was astonishing. They claimed that they were required, as part of their charter, to present a balance of opinions on "any contentious issues".

I pressed them on why they continued to interview the same shrill skeptics over and over again, and the response was that they were the only "experts" they could find who were willing to present that opinion

You might have thought that this should give them a clue that it's not actually a contentious issue, and therefore that they could ignore this part of their charter.

My next problem is, warming is happening, so what! What is the evidence that this will be a catastrophe? While I haven't been looking for any answers (i've got more important things to worry about), the debates i see, always rest on the notion that climate change is bad (there's concrete history that cooling is bad, but history unfortunately is contradictory to the notion that warming is bad). This makes me think that the debate is no longer one of science, but a philosophical one.

Oh come on. Again, I'm amazed. People don't know what warming will do?We're already seeing it now, and we're going to see more of it: higher sea levels, more flooding, more frequent storms, more severe storms, more drought.

That's bad.

Well, you see, there was an opposite thing here in Australia, we have this academic, Professor Tim Flannery, who is pretty big in climate change stuff now, he's chief commissioner in the australian climate commission. However, he made headlines earlier this year, because we've been having a fair bit of rain last summer, and floods, and it's looking like as if the drought in Australia has been broken.

Prof. Flannery had made some predictions, stating that we're in drying trends, and he flippantly stated (i think it was flippant) some years ago, that our dams would be dry by now, but, they're spectacularly full. He went on the media circus to defend his honour by claiming that people were mistaking weather with climate; so for the links you posted, which is it? climate or weather?

I think the other problem is, a true scientific model, would behave in a way i'm more accustomed to in my engineering, well at least i think it should (after all, who cares about anyone else...); for instance, we know how electrons behave in conductors, we can predict what will happen with a high degree of accuracy and precision, that's what all electronics is all about. We know how objects move around us, given narrow specifications, we predict with good accuracy and precision what will happen, but with climate modelling, none of this is getting predicted with any decent accuracy nor precision.

What i'm saying is also, on a philosophical level, no reason to dismiss everything, but i honestly think that the science is not ready yet. If we understood it properly, the solution would be clear, and the problem would be clear. As it stands, the system isn't behaving in a way which is making things obvious.

I think this graph really says it all in response: http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47 In a dataset with a great deal of variation, it's certainly possible to find blocks of time where the short term and long term trends are at odds. Much more of a stretch to think that, even if we were reverting back to year 2000 temperatures, that would prove the end of a 100+ year trend.

The authors suggest that this could, in part, be a result of the media's tendency to always offer two opposing opinions, even on issues where one is a fringe belief.

I really don't like this. I get that it is supposed to make the media "fair" and "balanced", but it gives undue attention. Not all stories have two sides, science isn't an argument. This is like giving the other side in the "sky is blue" debate. There is no debate! Just people that are living in reality and delusional people.

I don't know about where you are, but I just stepped outside and the sky here is black (well, with a tinge of grey including skylight). And there are some small lights visible in the distance.

the vast majority of scientists in general—and climate scientists in particular—have been convinced by the evidence that human activities are altering the climate. [] a significant portion of the public has concluded that this consensus doesn't exist. That has prompted a variety of studies aimed at understanding the large disconnect between scientists and the public

From my own perspective, there are 2 problems here:

1. It isn't the scientists who disseminate information. That role is given to the media, the government, and schools (in that order). The latter barely counts because the curriculum is largely set by the government. And the statements made by politicians are filtered through the media, so they are frequently distorted too. But at the heart of the problem, hard experience has taught me that everything from the media and politicians should be questioned. I have personally experienced situations where the media collected a variety of facts (from me and others involved) and wove them together into a total fiction. The reality was largely trivial - the published story was provocative, controversial, inflammatory (and completely false). So when the headlines scream, "All Scientists Concur - We Cause Climate Change!!", the best response I can muster is, "well... maybe".

2. We've heard it all before. Warnings, dire predictions, urgent calls for change - they're a dime a dozen. When I was younger, I took all this to heart. I tried to provoke discussion about what we should do and how, campaigned to make changes, and freely voiced my concerns about our future if we ignored the warnings. Problem was, nothing changed and none of the predicted calamities happened in the ensuing 35 years. Irrespective of the reason for the failure - whether media hype or scientist error - I'm not going to fall for it again. I don't see any sign that the sources of the information are any more credible either - every day brings fresh "statistics" and "scientific pronouncements" that are just tomorrow's rubbish. And worse, when it's a subject I personally know well, I'm too often left wondering if the author is intentionally dishonest or simply ignorant.

If there is a real climate crisis looming and there is something we need to do about, we need to hear it from a source that has earned some credibility. The government and the media have lost theirs.

"Yes, I remember when it was "There is no warming."Then "There's warming, but not a significant amount."Then "Ok, significant but not man-made."Now we seem to starting the transition period to "Ok it's significant and man-made, but we shouldn't bother trying to stop it anyway."

I guess this article explains why small minorities don't change their minds even against the bulk of the public and scientific community: they don't actually believe they're a minority. "

I remember when it was Global Cooling.Then is was Global Warming.Then ok, its global climate change.

Well at least with global climate change you have all your bases covered. No matter what happens you can say you were right.

"Yes, I remember when it was "There is no warming."Then "There's warming, but not a significant amount."Then "Ok, significant but not man-made."Now we seem to starting the transition period to "Ok it's significant and man-made, but we shouldn't bother trying to stop it anyway."

I guess this article explains why small minorities don't change their minds even against the bulk of the public and scientific community: they don't actually believe they're a minority. "

I remember when it was Global Cooling.Then is was Global Warming.Then ok, its global climate change.

Well at least with global climate change you have all your bases covered. No matter what happens you can say you were right.

O rly? When was it "global cooling"? Let's have a link to a reasonable source using that term.They changed from "global warming" to "climate change" because "warming" wasn't recognised as a threat by the public, and didn't describe the consequences.

AnonymousRich wrote:

GreenEngineer wrote:

Then you've got the other common skeptic tactic, which is to cite "experts" who are not really experts in climate science.

From the article...

-- By just about every measure, the vast majority of scientists in general—and climate scientists-- in particular—have been convinced by the evidence that human activities are altering the climate.

Looks to me that if any scientist (not *just* climate scientists) supports AGW, that counts.

And from other posts it appears that even a CEO of an oil company is authoritative if supporting AGW.

Where are non-climate scientists quoted as further evidence of climate change? They aren't: the vast majority of climate scientists are available for that, quotes from other scientists aren't needed (except by sceptics).